Ornament Exchange & other news

I signed up for three ornament exchanges this year. The first was for an email group that I participate in. I had a fantastic package from Deb waiting for me when I returned home. I absolutely love the ornament that she stitched for me. :) It's from this year's JCS ornaments issue. The photo isn't great-- and for the life of me, I couldn't get a decent photo of the whole package. It looks much prettier in person, of course, and the finishing is absolutely perfect. I always marvel at the beautiful finishing on the exchanges that I've been receiving.



I stitched an ornament for Judith. I have to admit that I was a little nervous about the stitching and finishing on this one. Judith is a professional designer and does the most perfect finishing I've ever seen. No pressure! LOL Seriously though, I've seen her finishing in person, and it's amazing. But I think I did okay! The design is Tudor Rose Ornament, by Nostalgic Needle. I found it in the 1999 JCS ornaments issue. (I get a lot of mileage out of those magazines.)



I feel like it has been ages since I've posted. Things have been so hectic lately, with the holidays fast approaching. I hope that everyone in the U.S. had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My dinner for BF and I was terrific-- everything turned out perfectly. It was way too much food for the two of us though, and we're still munching on leftovers. (This evening's offering... turkey casserole. LOL) We had Thanksgiving-- the Sequel-- on Saturday, when we celebrated with some of my family. There were the usual 30 or so people there and lots of fantastic food.

We returned to Reston on Sunday afternoon and had to immediately start getting ready to go to the ballet. BF surprised me with tickets (MONTHS ago) for the Joffrey Ballet's production of The Nutcracker at Kennedy Center. The ballet was wonderful... what we saw of it, anyway. I stupidly decided not to drive (I'm the only one of the two of us who has ANY clue how to get around in the city), but instead tried to navigate for BF. BAAADDDDD idea!!!! I can follow my nose to Kennedy Center, but I could never tell another person how to get there. Add the fact that we were driving around in the dark, and BF has no idea how to drive in DC... and you get a navigational disaster of comic proportions. It wasn't so funny at the time, though. The trip that should have taken a maximum of 30 minutes ended up taking over an hour and a half, and we ended up missing most of the first half. >:( Lesson learned-- all future driving to/from DC will be done by me.

For those of you who are familiar with the area... we ended up in Crystal City. Twice. We also visited Rosslyn on our little adventure. I went to college just a few miles outside DC and was the only one of my friends who had a car on-campus, so I was always the one who drove everywhere. I've never once gotten lost in DC... until now.

Despite the mishap, we're talking about going back in January. We figure if we do it often enough, we may finally get it right. ;)